Someone asked me how to stop feeling like a fraud when you are stepping into a bigger version of yourself. In fact, it wasn’t just one person. It’s been many people over many years.
I want to answer this carefully because I know this feeling can get personal very fast.
When people say they feel like a fraud, they usually mean, “I’m afraid I don’t actually belong here.”
They look around and see people who seem farther along. More articulate. More confident. More polished. More successful. Without knowing it, they start using those people as evidence against themselves.
I don’t think imposter syndrome happens because you have done something wrong.
From my experience, it happens because we stare at someone else’s life for too long.
And I say that with love. Not just to you, but to myself.
You cannot keep comparing your beginning to someone else’s tenth chapter and expect to feel steady. Measuring yourself against someone who has been doing what you do for longer, with different opportunities, a different story, or a different assignment altogether will, without fail, make you feel behind.
It’s an addictive distraction with a consequence. It punishes you for not being them. Put another way, it’s pain shopping.
If I compared my business, my platform, my pace, or my reach to someone else’s, I could find reasons to feel small all day long. But what good would that do? I am not responsible for building what they were called to build. I am responsible for being faithful with what is in front of me.
So let me ask you: what is actually in front of you?
Not what she is doing. Not what he is building.
What is the next honest thing you know you need to do?
If you are growing, some part of you is going to feel exposed. New growth is tender. It can make you feel vulnerable before it makes you feel confident. But it doesn’t mean you’re a fraud. It means your brain is trying to protect you from rejection, and it is mistaking discomfort for danger. What it really means is that you are in a place you have not fully grown into yet. See that as a good thing. See that as progress. Then keep moving forward.
If someone’s content makes you feel inadequate, take a break from it. If certain rooms make you forget every good thing you have already built, step out for a little while. If you keep leaving a conversation feeling smaller than when you walked in, pay attention to that. Remember the feeling so you can spot it sooner.
Feeling like a fraud, feeling like an imposter, often comes from turning people into posters and then measuring ourselves against them. But even our heroes have people they stare at for too long. At every level, there is always someone one degree higher to compare yourself to.
Here’s some encouragement for today. Protect your focus. Stop feeding the part of you that thinks everyone else’s life is the measuring stick for yours. Stop asking comparison to tell you who you are.
It’s time to get back to the work in front of you. The work assigned to you. The work you can actually be faithful with today.
